#10: Plant new trees and shrubs now instead of waiting until Spring. Prices are cheaper, the weather is nicer, and the plants will be happier and healthier. What more do you want? Eggs in your beer?

#9: Plant pansies now instead of waiting till Spring! These cold-weather lovers will bloom all fall and then again in the Spring, giving you twice the bang for your gardening buck! And make sure you eat some of the nutritious edible flowers!

#8: Get your garlic in the ground. Every single clove you plant now will become a big bulb full of cloves ready for harvest in June--a stinking good deal!

#7: DON'T plant your Spring bulbs yet--unless you live in Minnesota, Michigan or some other state that kisses Canada. Everyone else should wait until after Halloween to plant; down South, wait all the way to Thanksgiving. This will give your bulbs plenty of time to grow good roots, without having time to sprout prematurely.

#6: If you have a cool-season grass and need to reseed, do it now!

#5: If you have a cool-season grass and haven't given it a fine fall feeding, do it now!

#4: If you have a WARM season grass, watch the baseball playoffs on TV now--because you need to wait until the Spring to lavish love on your lawn.

#3: If you live in a cooler clime and plan to spread mulch to protect your Spring bulbs, garlic or perennial plants from a potentially wicked winter, wait until AFTER your soil freezes hard to put it in place.

#2: If you live anywhere and plan to spread mulch for ANY reason, don't allow the mulch to touch the trunks of trees or the stems of plants; you'll only encourage rot and nasty nibbling. And never use shredded bark or any other kind of wood mulch.

And
#1: The biggest Fall tip of all: A complete list of the plants you should be pruning at this time of year! You might want to get a pencil and paper and write these names down. OK? You ready? Here we go: NONE OF 'EM! That's right, NONE! Prune NOTHING now; nada; bupkiss; zero!

So put down those pruners, pick up a phone and make that pledge of support to your local Public Radio station--because we just saved you a lot more money than your membership is going to cost!